Android and other phone gossip

Inspector Sands · Wed 26 Jan, 2011 15.21

Pete wrote:How does everyone else have their homescreens set up btw? Not sure if I find that friend stream gizmo useful tbh

I quite like Friendstream, a few months back it partially died (due to a Twitter security upgrade) and I was surprised how much I miss it. I'm not a heavy Twitter user so it's fine just to browse and it's better than Peep however for Facebook which I do use a lot the app is better.

As for home screens I have themed mine. The Default one is clock/weather and basic phone functions - camera (for those moments when I quickly want to take a photo), contacts, text, internet

Then going left I have a page of frequently used apps, then a photography page (camera, camcorder, gallery and photo apps) and Friendstream on the far left

On the right side I have a 'useful' page (calander and news widgets, mail, call history, transport etc.) Then I have a page for audio/video (FM widget, music, podcast, audio players and links to streaming radio).

The far right screen I have all my controls i.e. to turn on/off internet/wifi/bluetooth/gps etc and relevant apps for each of them (GPS test, Antenna and shortcuts to Wifi and BT menus) as well as battery and memory meters, market and file manager. I found a great app called Widgetsoid with which you can create panels of shortcuts and switches. The handy thing is that you can fit more than the normal 4 across the screen

If you need inspiration go to something like Android forums and have a browse of some of the screenshots posted there, there are some great ideas there and you'll discover lots of widgets etc to help tart it up and do what you want.

Inspector Sands · Wed 26 Jan, 2011 15.32

Gavin Scott wrote:
Inspector Sands wrote:I'm not sure how the 'backup to gmail' app works but surely if you sync your gmail then they'll be saved on your account and you can just leave them there or save them locally on your PC
Yes, but wouldn't they disappear if the next time I backup to gmail and they're not on the phone?

I thought that was the point in "syncing"?

No, if they're on the gmail account but not on the phone they'll reappear when you sync. However if you delete the message from the phone it will delete it completely from both.

However the gmail app only seems to store a few days worth of e-mails - mine is 4 I think. It has the sender/subject in the inbox but only downloads the content if you open the mail. So you could presumably back them up, sync and then eventually the backup will just be in the gmail cloud and not on the phone.

But then as I say you could download the backup and then remove it from gmail anyway. What does the backup to gmail app actually do, does it make them into an attachment?

Gavin Scott · Wed 26 Jan, 2011 16.07

So it looks like regular emails - but held in a separate folder marked SMS. Same with MMS and call logs.

Its not "syncing" as such then perhaps - just writing them to the gmail account as messages.

I want to delete the lot from my phone, but keep the archive, and be able to add to it next time my phone builds up.

Inspector Sands · Wed 26 Jan, 2011 16.22

Gavin Scott wrote:

So it looks like regular emails - but held in a separate folder marked SMS. Same with MMS and call logs.

Its not "syncing" as such then perhaps - just writing them to the gmail account as messages.

I want to delete the lot from my phone, but keep the archive, and be able to add to it next time my phone builds up.

They'll always be on your Gmail account but I'm pretty sure they will drop off your Gmail app on your phone after a few days leaving just the inbox record. I've just cleared the data from my gmail and when it synced again everything from today till the 22nd is on the phone, but the content for everything else needs loading from the net. Annoyingly I can't find the setting for this any more but it was set to 4 days

It looks like it's just labelled them as 'SMS' so all you need to do to see them again is to press menu - Go To Labels and then select the 'SMS' label and they'll all be there

Gavin Scott · Wed 26 Jan, 2011 16.38

Sweeet.

I'll only access them from my PC via gmail - not on the phone itself probably.

So that's all good then.

Gavin Scott · Fri 28 Jan, 2011 10.52

So I have both "Facebook for HTC Sense" at 17.44MB and "Facebook" at 9.44MB on my handset.

Can I remove either one?

Pete · Fri 28 Jan, 2011 11.48

Where do you find out how much space the contacts are taking up? Is it under the People app as that only suggests about 20k

Gavin Scott · Fri 28 Jan, 2011 11.58

Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Contact Storage (= 18.72MB)

iSon · Sat 29 Jan, 2011 10.46

Would this be a good time to mention that I don't have to worry about any of this on my iPhone? Thought not.

Pete · Sat 29 Jan, 2011 11.11

iSon wrote:Would this be a good time to mention that I don't have to worry about any of this on my iPhone? Thought not.

Suppose you don't need contacts as much when you can't actually make phone calls.

Anyhow where is the fun in not being able to fanny around with the thing? Just works indeed. BORING.

19.2MB apparently for about 50 contacts :S

bilky asko · Sat 29 Jan, 2011 17.44

iSon wrote:Would this be a good time to mention that I don't have to worry about any of this on my iPhone? Thought not.

How do you go about changing your battery?